Microcomputer - Micro-Designer MD-80 one of the first complete educational / design Microcomputer Systems

      John Titus tells about his designing the MD 80 microcomputer in the mid 70's

The Micro Designer 8080 (MD 80) microcomputer was the first system for training & development commercially available.  The system was a complete operational microcomputer with all the input/output signals easily available as solderless connections, training material  , and many operational software examples.

MD-80 by Blacksburg Group

 
   David tells little story about the origin of the very first complete training microcomputer

Dr. John Titus

This was the second major computer design for John Titus.  His first design "The Mark 8" computer was published in Radio Electronics (July 1974)  as a graduate student at Virginia Tech. The Mark 8 was also a milestone computer as one of the first constructions articles that made it possible for a computer geek to make his own affordable computer. This was 2 years before the Steve Wozniak's Apple 1. Here is the MMD-1 our second commercial computer and the first single board computer - another history maker for John.

MD-80 Micro designer

These were very exciting times for the group at Tychon blazing and leading the frontier in digital and microcomputer education. The group consisted of  Dr. John Titus , Dr. Peter Rony, David Larsen and later Dr. Chris Titus.

MD1 teaching in 1977

WOW I just found this 1976 slide using the MMD1 wired to an experiment when teaching an Interfacing Workshop.

MD-1

E and L Instruments Catalog

MD-1

Solderless breadboard Bus signals

The computer and educational material was marketed by E & L Instruments in Derby Connecticut.  I had arranged an agreement with E & L a year or so earlier to market the basic digital training system consisting of Bugbooks 1 & 2 along with digital training aids known as "Outboards".  This was about 38 years ago in 1975 and I remember my meetings with the E & L president Mr. Murry Gallent. This contractual arrangement provided our group had a nice royalty stream for about 10 years with many other books and hardware. The Group soon became known as the "Blacksburg Group".  E & L Instruments published the original Bugbooks . Fortunately we kept all the rights to the books and about a year later our publisher was "Howard W. Sams" and the books were known as "The Blacksburg Continuing Education Series"

See Micro- Designer computer (red) in the header on this blog - right side behind the word Museum.

David Larsen KK4WW

 The 10 years our group was creating books, microcomputers and digital training devices was a great experience for us. The 10 year path took many turns and most were positive and upward. We did have few bumps along the way.  One time E & L stopped paying royalties and were had an interesting and expensive lesson about litigation. Other than the cost of attorneys the royalties resumed from E & L.

^{"By David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}   
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Vintage Brainiac Computer Trainer 1959

This Brainiac K-30 trainer was added to our Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum about 20 years ago when my brother found it in antique store for $5.  It is a simple electrical device using rotating disks with programmable contacts  to do a few simple logic and math experiments. I guess at the time it was the only thing available but it is very limited as an educational device.
 

Original Box

The Brainiac was the idea and design of Edmund Callis Berkeley in 1959.  The BRAINIAC (Brain-Imitating  Almost - Automatic Computer) was preceded by three other Berkeley training machines. They were the GENIAC (Genius Almost - Automatic Computer) , TINYAC ( Tiny Almost - Automatic Computer) and the WEENIAC ( Weeny Almost - Automatic Computer).

Edmund Berkeley (1909- 1988) was involved with computing machinery during his working career. Edmund was a fascinating  and eclectic person working with some of the earliest computer pioneers and  published many papers and some books.

Manual & Circuit board

In 1930 he received a BA degree from Harvard University in Logic & Math. He worked as actuarial clerk in the insurance industry prior to his Navy duty (1942) as a mathematician and worked on the MARK II a sequential calculator project. Just to list a few of his works.
1947 Helped found the Eastern Association for Computing Machinery.
1948 Set up his own company Berkeley Associates and also felt his duty to work against nuclear war.
1949 Wrote one of his first books "Giant Brains, Or Machines That Think".

Tools for building & using the K-30

1958 He became involved with the peace movement with the committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) lead by Norman Cousins.
His papers and collection of his works are located in the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.  It is from these historical papers and Bob Dalton's book 'The PC Pioneers' where I found the information used in this blog.

                           This video will give you a good idea what is inside the box

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Here I am with my wife Gaynell. She puts up with all my computer collecting and has for years.  She is correct - I do need to determine the final distribution of  this collection because our children have very little interest or knowledge about the computers or their historical importance.  I am working on several options but would welcome any input from readers of my computer blog.
"by David Larsen" - KK4WW Computer Collector/Historian

Micro-Professor Computer MPF-1B trainer shows up in Goodwill store

I do not add computers to my collection very often now however my sons wife found this one for $10 in a Goodwill store. 

The Micro-Professor is not a rare microcomputer however I don't recall having one in my historical collection so happy obtain this one.

Wikipedia  The Micro-Professor MPF-I, introduced in 1981 by Multitech (which, in 1987, changed its name to Acer), was the first branded computer product from Multitech and probably one of the world's longest selling computers. The MPF-I, specifically designed to teach the fundamentals of machine code and assembly language, is a simple and easy to use training system for the Zilog Z80 microprocessor.
The MPF-I does not look like a typical microcomputer. It is enclosed in a vacuum formed plastic book case often used to store a copy of a language textbook, two audio cassettes, and a training manual. When closed, the MPF-I can be placed on a bookshelf for easy storage and looks just like a book or a file.

         The content of box is complete with teaching manuals, power supply and computer.

I can't say if this is a good trainer however some report it is not to good.  I think would really depend on what you would expect from the product.  It apparently sold a lot of them so some folks must like the computer. It works when powered up and seems just fine.
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Some times computers arrive from unexpected places and unknown times. This was a very pleasant surprise to get the Micro-Professor.

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"by David Larsen" , KK4WW 
Historical Microcomputer Collector/Historian